


beauty in the dissonance

by callunavulgari



Series: Dark Month Collection [81]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Deal with a Devil, Helheimr | Hel (Realm), Loki (Marvel) Lives, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Resurrection, Tony Stark Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 21:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21167798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: When Tony dies, it isn’t for forever. He shuts his eyes on his friends, on the end of an era, on,I am Iron Man, and when he opens them again, there’s a dead god crouched above him with eyes like chips of sea glass.“Thought you were dead,” he rasps. His throat feels like it's been packed with earth.Loki’s lips quirk upwards at the corners. “I might say the same of you.”





	beauty in the dissonance

**Author's Note:**

> Day 24 of October. I uh, missed yesterday because I had a job interview, went to the bar to celebrate, and promptly gave myself food poisoning. I'm going to try to go back and write it this weekend, but we'll see.
> 
> Prompts were: unfinished business, song, killer, lost, wrath, celestial beings, witchcraft. I only hit on a couple of these, and other than the resurrection bit, there's nothing particularly spooky about it. I was going to focus on just one song, but I got really into listening to my go-to Loki mix, [Havoc by Saucery](https://8tracks.com/saucery/havoc). It is five hours long and features a fantastic collection of songs including a fantastic cover of [Milkshake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMuvrx5_eXA).

When Tony dies, it isn’t for forever.

He shuts his eyes on his friends, on the end of an era, on, _I am Iron Man_, and when he opens them again, there’s a dead god crouched above him with eyes like chips of sea glass.

“Thought you were dead,” he rasps. His throat feels like it's been packed with earth.

Loki’s lips quirk upwards at the corners. “I might say the same of you.”

Tony blinks, then shrugs, because the asshole’s got him there. He takes the hand that Loki offers him, feels his world tip and right itself once he’s got his feet under him. His legs feel wobbly, like a newborn’s.

“Where are we?” he asks, peering around him in confusion. The land that they’re standing on is parched, the dry soil cracking under his feet. The sky is a disturbing murky green and there are no stars. Wherever it is, it's fucking _cold_.

“Helheim,” Loki tells him in a distracted sort of way, glancing over his shoulder like he can see something in the whipping, howling wind that Tony can’t. “We don’t have long.”

Tony arches an eyebrow. He puts his hands on his hips, wincing at the tattered clothing he finds there. The fabric is familiar, the cut of the suit hugging him in a way that means it was specifically tailored for him. It takes him a moment to realize that this must be what they buried him in.

“Don’t have long to do what?” he asks, squinting into the distance. Whatever Loki is tracking with narrowed eyes, it’s invisible to Tony. That should scare him more, but in this strange land, knowing that he is dead and buried and mourned, when he reaches for the fear, it doesn’t come.

Loki turns a sneer on him. “To _escape_. My darling sister has control of this realm now, and she isn’t fond of the thieving of souls.”

Tony snorts.

“Is that what you’re doing? _Stealing_ me?” Loki stares him down. It’s a familiar look of haughty disdain that Tony’s never quite managed to replicate. No one in the universe can pull off the same level of casual vitriol that Loki displays so easily. “Why?”

At that, Loki’s lips twist again. Good humor, perhaps a bit of mischief. He leans in close, green eyes glittering, and purrs, “Why else? I have need of you, Stark.”

What Loki needs Tony for becomes less and less clear as time goes on. He brings Tony to a small hole in space, and when they step through it, Tony finds himself in a strange little room. It’s a bit like what he imagined Asgard would have looked like, before Thor had blown it up.

The walls are a warm cream color, edged with what looks to be real gold, and there’s an emerald green chaise near a table in the center of the room, surrounded by piles and piles of dusty old books. The large wooden table along the far wall holds an absolute feast - roasted duck glistening with fat, bowls of brightly colored fruit, and loaves of golden-brown bread that seem to still be steaming.

The rest of the room though, is littered with strange glittering baubles and ominous glowing artifacts.

“I’m assuming this is your hidey hole?” he asks, crossing to pick up something that looks like a paperweight but glows with an ominous purple light the moment he picks it up. His lashes flutter. Distantly, he can hear the howling of wolves.

Loki hisses and slaps the bauble out of Tony’s hands. “Do. Not. Touch. Anything.”

Tony narrows his eyes. The bitter, petty part of him insists that now he should be touching _everything_, but he metaphorically sits on his damn hands. Then does it for real, just to be on the safe side.

Once Loki has secured the mysterious glowing paperweight, he returns to Tony. He props himself up on a table, and crosses his arms.

“Yes, if you must know, this is the place I go to when I am being… hunted.”

“Hunted,” Tony deadpans.

Loki nods, producing an apple from seemingly nowhere and taking a bite of it. He chews thoughtfully, rolling the apple in his hands. “The universe seems to think that I should be dead.”

Tony blinks. “Well, you _did_ die.”

“Did I, though?” Loki asks, tossing the apple to Tony. He catches it, more out of reflex than anything else, and watches as for his next magic trick, Loki pulls the tesseract from his little pocket of nothing.

“That-” Tony’s face twists with disbelief. “No. Nope. We overwrote that timeline. Steve got the tesseract from the past, I watched him-”

Loki shrugs. “Time is a strange thing. I’m sure you mortals thought that you had it all figured out, but it is not something that can be understood after a fortnight of experimentation.”

“Not even when a bunch of wizards who have spent decades studying the time stone advised us on it? Do _they_ not know anything either?”

Loki glares at him. “I did not bring you here to argue, Stark.”

Tony takes a bite of the apple, reclining on the chaise. He starts to bounce his knee, mostly because he knows it will drive Loki nuts. “Then what _did_ you bring me here for?”

“We have unfinished business, you and I,” Loki murmurs in a silky tone. As Tony watches, he crosses one leg over the other. It makes him look disarmingly normal, like he should be barefoot and in shirtsleeves somewhere, not wearing leather and talking to Tony about _unfinished business_.

“I _finished_ my business,” Tony tells him. “I saved the world.”

“You did,” Loki concedes with a nod. “And I’m sure everyone is very grateful. However, I do not intend to just roll over and let my sister have my corpse. I have seen what she does to souls, and I will not be her plaything.”

“And what exactly does this have to do with me?”

Loki smiles. It’s a very pointed smile, sharp around the edges. “You, my dear mortal, were the last to wield the stones. You are reasonably intelligent. And now, you are indebted to me.”

Tony squints at him. “How do you figure?”

Loki’s smile widens.

“I stole you from the very gates of Hel itself. You _live_ because of me, ” he whispers, pushing up off of the table behind him and closing the distance between them. Tony watches warily as he gets closer and closer, until Loki is leaning heavily into his space. He smells of leather and earth, and when he speaks again, Tony can feel his breath on his lips. “And now, thanks to that incredibly rare apple you’ve just imbibed, you are going to live for a very, _very_ long time.”

Tony looks at the apple in his hand. Belatedly, he drops it. They both watch it roll across the floor before coming to a stop next to a tall and golden suit of armor.

“Shit,” Tony says.

Loki flashes him a beatific smile. “So you see, you _owe_ me.”

“I didn’t ask for you to bring me back to life,” Tony tells him, a bit petulantly. “And I _definitely_ didn’t ask to be made immortal.”

“True,” Loki admits, shifting his weight. His smile is still there, still sharp, still too close, but Tony can’t make himself move away. “But think about it, Stark. You can reunite with your loved ones, go back to the life you left behind, watch your daughter grow… is that not your heart’s greatest desire?”

Tony sucks in a sharp breath. He does want that. So badly that it aches.

He thinks that Loki can tell, because his smile shifts into something distinctly pleased, like the cat who got the canary.

“So,” Loki murmurs. “What do you say, Stark? Do we have a bargain?”

“And you’ll take me to my family afterwards?” he asks. He knows how these types of deals often go, knows that when you make a deal with the devil, you should triple check the terms and conditions before you shake on it.

“I will,” Loki tells him. He sways that fraction of an inch closer, so close that he’s practically in Tony’s lap.

“Then we have a deal,” Tony says, catching him by the hips.

Loki’s eyes glitter.

“Seal it with a kiss, Stark,” Loki croons, a cool hand coming up to take Tony’s jaw in hand.

And Tony, god help him, does. 


End file.
